Elderly Drivers Keep Alert For Signs Of Aging

Most older people are capable and have a lifetime of valuable driving experience. For these reasons, decisions about a person’s ability to drive should never be based on age alone. However, changes in vision, physical fitness and reflexes may cause safety concerns. People who accurately assess these changes can adjust their driving habits so that they stay safe on the road, or choose other kinds of transportation.

Symptoms

Do you have problems reading highway or street signs or recognizing someone you know across the street?

Do you have trouble seeing lane lines and other pavement markings, curbs, medians, other vehicles and pedestrians, especially at dawn, dusk and at night?

Do you experience more discomfort at night from the glare of oncoming headlights?

What You Can Do

Make sure you always wear your glasses and that they are a current prescription. If you lose or break your glasses, don’t rely on an old pair; replace them right away with your newest prescription. Avoid eyewear with side pieces that may block your vision.

Do not wear sunglasses or tinted lenses at night. This reduces the amount of light that reaches your eyes and makes driving much more hazardous. Don’t darken or tint your car windows. Avoid driving at dawn, dusk and night. If you are extremely light-sensitive, check with your eye doctor to see if it can be corrected.

Keep your windshield, mirrors and headlights clean, and make sure your headlight aim is checked when your car is inspected. Choose a car with larger dials and easy-to-read symbols. Turn brightness up on the instrument panel.

Sit high enough in your seat so that you can see the road for at least 10 feet in front of your car. This will make a big difference in reducing the amount of glare you experience from opposing headlights at night. Use a cushion if your car seats can’t be raised.

Look to the lower right side of the road when there is oncoming traffic. Some vehicles have rearview mirrors that automatically filter out glare; you might find this feature beneficial, especially for nighttime driving.

If you are 60 or older, see an eye doctor every year to check for cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other conditions associated with aging.

For these and other Tennessee highway safety suggestions contact the experienced Nashville trial lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and take a look at our web site. Call 615-356-2000 with any questions about car wrecks.

Age Alone Should Not Count

The AAA Foundation for Driver Safety estimates that one out of every five drivers in America will be 65 or older by 2030. Many older people are capable and have a lifetime of valuable driving experience. For these reasons, decisions about a person’s ability to drive should never be based on age alone.

However, changes in vision, physical fitness and reflexes may cause safety concerns. People who accurately assess these changes can adjust their driving habits so that they stay safe on the road, or choose other kinds of transportation.

Older people are keeping their licenses longer, driving more miles and make up a bigger portion of the driving population as baby boomers age, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which reports that there were 21.6 million licensed drivers 70 and older in 2008, which amounted to 10 percent of drivers of all ages.

What role should the state play in the decision to turn over their car keys?

Tennessee is one of the least restrictive states in the country for older drivers. Most other states do have laws in place that impose heightened licensing requirements on older drivers, from accelerated renewal cycles to requiring that drivers over a certain age pass vision and/or reaction tests.

Some states go so far as to require older drivers to submit a doctor’s certification that they are safe to drive. Federal law already allows health-care providers to provide protected information to public officials if they believe there is a threat to public safety.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident involving an elderly driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Tennessee car accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies. Call 615-356-2000

Practice Parking Lot Safety

The other day I stopped off at a local mall to purchase a Christmas gift and I observed a young mother with a couple of children in the three to four-year-old range. As she got one child out of her car seat and went around to the other side of her SUV to get the other one, she warned the kids to use parking lot manners.

I assumed she had instructed them to stay by her side and look out for cars until she got the car locked and was holding each of their hands. I thought of this woman and “parking lot manners” when I read about a 72-year-old pedestrian accident in a parking lot in Clarksville Tennessee.

Wherever there are cars one has to keep a look out and be ready to respond to an emergency to avoid being run over. A 72-year-old man was pinned between a car and a building Monday in the parking lot of a Madison Street business.

A local media outlet said that a 77-year-old driver of a Ford 500 car was backing out of a parking spot when a vehicle crossed behind her and sounded their horn. The driver then began to pull forward into the parking spot and the accelerator stuck, lunged forward, and struck the 72-year-old man standing in front of the building, pinning him between the vehicle and the building. The man was seriously injured and was transported to Vanderbilt Medical Center.

The lawyers and staff at Phillip Miller & Associates want to take this opportunity to remind you that during this busy holiday season to practice “parking lot manners”, at all times. If you are injured you ought to contact the experienced Nashville auto accident attorneys and find out about your rights and remedies. Call 615-356-2000.

Stop Means Stop

According to a recent study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, older drivers face substantially elevated risk of being involved in and responsible for crashes in which they themselves die, and they pose more risk to other road users than the lowest-risk drivers do; however, the degree to which older drivers’ risk to other road users is elevated depends strongly upon whether risk is being measured on a per-driver, per-trip, or per-mile basis.

For example, the results of this study suggest that if a randomly-selected driver in his or thirties and a randomly-selected driver aged 85 or older were to drive equal numbers of miles, the older driver would be over 1500% more likely than the younger driver to be responsible for and die as a result of a crash, and about 220% more likely than the younger driver to kill an occupant of another vehicle or a non-motorist.

This topic was brought to mind when I read an article in the Phoenix Arizona newspaper while on was on a recent road trip. According to the reports, an elderly woman is dead after an early-morning car accident in Buckeye AZ. The 90-year-old woman ran a stop sign and her car collided with a pickup truck about 7:40 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of Highway 85 and Rainbow Road. She was dead at the scene.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident involving an elderly driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Tennessee car accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies.

Parents or Grandparents?

A recent study published in the Journal Pediatrics seems to support the premise that kids may well be safest in cars when grandma or grandpa are driving instead of mom or dad. Previous evidence indicates that car crashes are more common in older drivers, mostly those beyond age 65. The study looked at injuries rather than who had more crashes, and found that children’s risk for injury was 50 percent lower when riding with grandparents than with parents.

The study suggests that the reason why this result is found is, “Perhaps grandparents are made more nervous about the task of driving with the ‘precious cargo’ of their grandchildren and establish more cautious driving habits” to compensate for any age-related challenges.

This is an interesting article and I could spend time telling you about it but rather, I suggest that you read it your self at Pediatrics.

If you or a loved one are injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by an elderly driver, or if you want more information about what steps to take if you have a family member who needs an intervention, contact the experience Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller  & Associates. Call 615-356-2000.

A Lenoir City woman drove her car through the front windows of the Lenoir City Eye Center has sent two women to a hospital with minor injuries. The driver told police that there was some problem with the accelerator. The car went through the glass and 15 feet into the store. The driver was unhurt.

Local media reports fail to identify the woman or anything about her, such as age, medical condition or driving records.  Age and medical condition are important to determine what might have caused the problem.

The good news is that seniors are among the safest drivers on the road and many limit their driving to compensate for age related health and functional changes.

Confused Driving

The bad news is that seniors are more likely to be seriously injured or killed when involved in a crash. With advancing age come changes in medical health and function that impact on the ability to drive safely.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in an accident caused by an elderly driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation. Call 615-356-2000

A recent study done by the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, found that drivers older than 65 were half as likely to notice pedestrians near or moving toward the street as were experienced drivers between the ages of 28 and 45. Even though older drivers have much more experience behind the wheel, apparently older drivers, according to the study, have a narrower field of vision than younger drivers and this causes them to miss developments at curbside and on sidewalks that could negatively impact their relationship with pedestrians.

The difference is significant, with drivers 65 and old being half as likely to see pedestrians moving toward the street than younger drivers. Using a driving simulator, researchers found that those older than 65 tapped on their brakes in response to a “roadside hazard” about half as often, suggesting either that they did not see it or that they did not consider it something they needed to attend to.

On a positive note the study found that older drivers drive more slowly — about 20 percent more slowly, perhaps to compensate for shortcomings in their peripheral vision and attention. The lesson for Tennessee drivers is that we should recognize that older drivers see the road differently and that we should give them plenty of road room when we encounter one.

If you have parents or loved one you might want to discuss this study with them and encourage them to take due precautions when they drive. If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee roadway accident caused by an elderly driver, you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Tennessee auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies.

State Troopers near Elizabethton, Tennessee are still not sure how a roadway departure crash occurred. A 79-year-old woman was driving along the Elizabethton Highway when she left the road, over corrected, flipped and landed against a utility pole. My prayers go out to her for a speedy and complete recover.

Previous research has found that older driver fatal crash involvement rates per licensed driver declined substantially in the United States during 1997-2006 and declined much faster than the rate for middle-age drivers. The current study examined whether the larger-than-expected decline for older drivers extended to nonfatal crashes and whether the decline in fatal crash risk reflects lower likelihood of crashing or an improvement in survivability of the crashes that occur.

In 2008, older people accounted for 15 percent of all traffic fatalities and 18 percent of all pedestrian fatalities. Most traffic fatalities involving older drivers in occurred during the daytime (80%), occurred on weekdays (72%), and involved other vehicles (69%).

If you or a loved on is injured or killed in a Tennessee motor vehicle accident caused by a negligent driver contact the experienced Nashville auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation.

Don't Stop On Interstate

Traffic on interstates usually moves more safely and efficiently because access is controlled. There are no stop signs, no railroad crossings and no traffic lights. Interstates usually have few steep hills or sharp curves to limit the view of the road ahead. Limited access or controlled access means that drivers enter or leave the roadway only at entrances and exits, called interchanges, without ever crossing the path of other traffic.

In most driving situations, you slow down or stop before you enter a busy road, but when entering an interstate, you do the opposite. You must use the merging or acceleration lane to speed up and merge with fast-moving traffic already on the interstate. Good judgment and good timing are necessary to merge smoothly with fast-moving traffic.

Upon entering the interstate on-ramp, stay to the right and increase your speed in the acceleration lane/entrance ramp. Use the ramp to reach interstate speed so you can merge smoothly into the travel lane when the way is clear. Be sure to give the proper left turn signal to indicate your need to enter the traffic lane.

Drivers already on the interstate should, for their own safety, make allowance for vehicles attempting to enter. It is your responsibility to yield the right-of-way to other cars on the interstate.

An elderly driver was injured after their car apparently stopped on the entrance ramp going from Briley Parkway onto Interstate-40 eastbound, and was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer. Fortunately, neither of the elderly people in the vehicle were seriously injured.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident involving an elderly driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Tennessee car accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies.

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney, when I hear about an accident like the one that took the life of a 72-year-old Greenville, Tennessee man I immediately wonder if the accident was caused by a medical emergency.

The facts are simple, the man was driving in one direction on US Highway 321 and for some unknown reason he crossed the centerline and slammed head-on into a car traveling in the other direction. The driver and his passenger who were hit were injured and transported to a local hospital.

Incidences of drivers who had crashes precipitated by medical emergencies  while driving are relatively rare and account for only 1.3 percent of all road fatalities. Older drivers have relatively higher incidences of crashes precipitated by medical emergencies when compared to young and middle-age drivers. Drivers in crashes precipitated by medical emergencies were more likely than other drivers to be severely injured or to die as a result of the crash.

Patient education by health care providers on early warning signs of a health crisis, such as warning signs before seizures, diabetic or hypoglycemic comas and potential side effects of medications are recommended as the most effective countermeasure.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile traffic accident contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates

Medical Emergencies

and take advantage of a free consultation to determine your rights and remedies.